Enhancing Core Teaching Skills with Technology


#4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility


Teachers understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices. Teachers:

  • advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources
  • address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources
  • promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information
  • develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital-age communication and collaboration tools

Table of Contents:
Evaluation of Districts Digital Citizenship Policy-Module 5, NETS 4b
Rational for Digital Citizenship-Module 5, NETS 4a,c
Template for Website Evaluation-Module 4, NETS 4a,c
Digital Citizenship Activities-Module 5, NETS 4a,b,c
Discussion of District's Digital Citizenship Policy-Module 5, NETS 4b


My artifacts demonstrating this standard (What?)

Enter your list of artifacts here that demonstrate how you have met this standard and create a hyperlink to each item.

Digital Citizenship:

Austin does have an Internet Use Policy. Students and staff are expected to act in a responsible, ethical, and legal manner in accordance with district policy, accepted rules of network ettiquette, and Federal and State law. There are 16 specific uses that are prohibited covering ettiquette, communication, access, commerce, law, rights and responsibilities, and security. Our firewalls greatly limit what we can access so there's not a lot of problems in that area. Literacy is the responsibility of the teachers, which is why all the teachers are strongly urged to take classes like this one. If Digital Health and Wellness are addressed any where in our curriculum, I'm not aware of it. There is no written curriculum for Digital Citizenship Education. An activity I would begin with would be a tour of the website below.
http://www.cybercrime.gov/rules/kidinternet.html

Rational for Digital Citizenship:
Students should be educated in correct use of technology. Digital citizenship should be taught in conjunctionj with our school's computer use policy. Our students today are most likely going to be life long users of cyberspace and need to be taught correct use as well as the many threats and dangers there are. To teach them I would use an activity such as a tour of "Beyond Emily Posting Ediquette" on the website Edutopia.

To evaluate a website in Module 4, I went to Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators at Discovery Education.com. Listed there were many different critical Evaluation Surveys. I chose one called “The 5 W's of Web Site Evaluation”. This one appealed to me because it was simple in format but yet detailed enough to allow a thorough investigation of a website. I believe my 7th graders would have no problem using this survey as they are very experienced using the 5 W's.

http://kathyschrock.net/abceval/5ws.pdf

Standard 4

Wikis in Plain English
Clear Explanation of what a wiki is and how it could be used to help students work together and plan activities. I would use this video to introduce my students to wikis and then ask them how they think they could use them. One possibility that comes to mind is the planning of the 4th graders field trip to Pittsburgh and what they will need to have with them.


Teen Talk
Use of Yack Pack to talk real time or record voice messages with each other or students anywhere. Addressed on-line safety presented in Netiquette.

Summarization of Discussion Points:
Discussion by myself and my colleagues is that there is a general lacking of knowledge about what sites are blocked and what our capabilities for technological tools are available to us. Also, exactly how to approach our administrators, parents, and school board with the sites we feel we need to access to and how to effectively administor our students uses of these sites. It would be useful, in the future, to have a complete list of sites available on our school network.

. http://www.edutopia.org/blocking-filtering-lockdowns-oh-my
My Reflection on meeting this standard (So What?)
The "Rational for Digital Citizenship" and "Digital Citizenship Activities" both address the importance of ethical and legal practice of using technology in the classroom.

My Future Learning Goals related to this standard (Now What?)

I would like to establish an ePal project with a class from another state or even possibly another country.